Tuesday, 30 November 2010

Once more paraphrasing the words of Mark Steyn, "Must be convenient to have a [professional] code that obliges all your pathologies."

Two Ottawa police officers involved in the controversial strip search of a 27-year-old woman are being named in a lawsuit by another woman who says she was injured while in custody. [...] Carr is suing police for "personal injury" — although the nature of the injury is unclear, as her lawyer, Lawrence Greenspon, has yet to file a formal statement of claim outlining his client's version of the facts and the restitution she is seeking.

Carr's criminal defence lawyer said her case is being looked into by the Special Investigations Unit, the Ontario police watchdog that investigates incidents in which civilians have been seriously hurt or killed in interactions with police. Carr was arrested and charged with mischief, resisting arrest and assaulting a peace officer on Aug. 23, 2008.

Her arrest came a month before that of Stacy Bonds, who was subjected to a strip search after being arrested for [alleged] public intoxication.

Two of the officers named in Carr's suit, Special Const. Melanie Morris and Sgt. Steven Desjourdy, were involved in the strip search of Bonds on Sept. 26, 2008.

From here. More here about other complaints against Morris and Desjourdy.

The above is a photo of Desjourdy. If you're a woman in Ottawa and this cop approaches you, run for your life.

Monday, 29 November 2010

That neatly sums up the observations Jim Judd, director of the CSIS, shares with his fellow spooks in the US - now available here, thanks to the latest Wikileaks.

Judd expresses derision and contempt for ordinary Canadians who have shown empathy for Omar Khadr. As well he complains about the legal challenges becoming a "distraction" that could have a major "chill effect" on the work his intelligence officials do.

Judd credited Prime Minister Stephen Harper's minority Conservative government for "taking it on the chin and pressing ahead" with common sense measures despite court challenges and political knocks from the opposition and interest groups.

Very occasionally, women who are in crisis pregnancy, will discuss and consider adoption. In my experience it is sometimes more common for younger women, especially ‘under age’ teenage girls to think about adoption. In a previous job, when I was helping pregnant girls aged 13 – 17, they would often enquire about adoption, but just as quickly say that they didn’t want their baby to go to homosexual couples. Here in London, when a pregnant lady broaches the possibility of adoption, she is more hesitant, but nonetheless will have the gut reaction that she does not want her baby to go to a homosexual couple. But outside of our centre, who is listening to these women?

This blogger (warning: religious glurge at link) doesn't say whether these women would rather abort than be a party to an evil gay adoption. But it's possible, no?

Rather, she -- I assume it's a she -- whinges about the rights of birth mothers to be bigoted.

In the debate on who should be entitled to adopt children – gay/lesbian couples or a heterosexual family – why aren’t the voices of women who do not want their children to go to homosexual ‘unions’ ever heard? This includes a woman in crisis pregnancy or a woman who for whatever reasons has her child taken from her by government bodies. Might this be a plausible reason why the biological mothers are kept gagged – because if it were more widely known that they did not want their children going to homosexual ‘unions’ that the pro-homosexual adoption lobby would lose their trump card? After all, the lobby groups that support gay adoption talk about it being a ‘right’ to adopt a child, but what right is left to the biological mother? Does she not have the right firstly to freedom of speech where she can say that she does not want her child to go to a homosexual couple? And secondly, does she not have the right to decide that her child who is her flesh and blood ought not to go to a homosexual couple? This talk and bluster about so-called ‘rights’ is very selective –so much so that the rights of ‘the mother of origin’ aka the biological mother are often forgotten altogether.

(Love all those scare quotes.)

Right. And how about birth mothers who don't want their children to go to couples of different ethnic origins? Different religions?

Don't they have rights too, dammit?

I have a (white) cousin who was dating a black guy. Her asshole fundy father actually threatened to kill her if she didn't stop seeing him. She left the province and didn't look back. (Apparently, daddy dearest was heart-broken. I say 'apparently' because I never had anything to do with the jerk again.)

Sunday, 28 November 2010

George W. Bush had written in Decision Points that his mother had showed him the dead fetus of a potential brother or sister when he was a teenager, and that the incident had helped implant in his mind the belief that abortion was fundamentally wrong.

[...] Sarah Palin found time to lash out at her political foes - in this case the media for blowing out of proportion her gaffe on the Korean crisis. [...]

Of the media reports that followed her little mix-up, she said, "Obviously, I would have been even more impressed if the media showed some consistency on this issue. Unfortunately, it seems they couldn't resist the temptation to turn a simple one word slip-of-the-tongue of mine into a major political headline." And for her part, Palin couldn't resist firing back.

As this political observer notes out, the specific gaffe is not the point, it's Palin's proud, happy-as-a-pig-in-shit ignorance that's the problem. Oh. And also. Too.

Exhibit 3: Pope Maledict and the Vatican Taliban now claim condom use by men during "not-normal sex" to prevent HIV transmission is OK.

Renowned moral theologian Janet Smith makes an analogy in her essay on the current controversy. “If someone was going to rob a bank and was determined to use a gun, it would better for that person to use a gun that had no bullets in it. It would reduce the likelihood of fatal injuries.”

Once more, the twisty logic demonstrates that catholic dogma and ideology is all about controlling female sexual and reproductive power. Condom use by women to prevent pregnancy and protect themselves from disease is still a CAPITAL sin.

Everyone who doesn't believe gawd speaks through pope Maledict and his Vatican Taliban.

Feminists (see above).

Anyone who responded with outrage to the systemic cop-initiated violence against Stacy Bonds but doesn't run screaming into the streets when SHE posts glossy fetal p0rn0graphy and/or SHE shrieeks about the BABEEZ! Butchered! In. Abortuaries!

Medical professionals, because they provide science and fact-based health care services which are BIASED against BABEEZ!

The mainstream media because Bill Whatcott is just like folksy figure Johnny Appleseed.

If you're Stevie Spiteful: the world's his enemy - except for whatever remains of his formerly terrorized ReformaTory caucus members and a few kool-aid-drinking sycophants.For bad measure and your consideration - Kathy Shaidle. OK, Five Feet of Feces is more of a pro-active hater and bully than victimized by enemies, but she deserves to be mentioned, if only because of this and more recently, this.

She testified they had been dating for about three months and she spent most nights at his home, but also worked as a prostitute. She said Godwin didn't ask her to stop turning tricks, as the money helped pay for her drug habit, but she just wasn't supposed to do it at his home.

Do you think the fetus fetishists will recognize what a can of worms they're trying to open with Bruinooge's badly camouflaged anti-choice 'chill' bill?

The Freaks are discussing the Vaughan by-election. It seems they don't like Julian Fantino much.

Fabulous Fred said:

It is the duty of all good conservatives in Vaughn to vote liberal.

The message must be delivered to Harper's ivory tower that only genuine bona fide conservatism is palatable. If Fauntino wins it open the flood gate for disgruntled Dippers and Liebrals to run as CPC candidates without ever altering their political beliefs one iota.

Yeah, because authoritarian, homophobic Fantino is just another soshialist in cunning disguise.

Refusing to get an abortion left a pregnant Calgary woman in a life-and-death struggle with her boyfriend, an accused murderer testified Thursday.

And Melinda Morin insisted she had no choice but to use deadly force to repel an angry Barry Neil Godwin.

In November 2009, Morin stabbed Godwin five times, any one of which, according to the medical examiner, would have been fatal. There were no drugs or alcohol in Godwin's body, but cocaine was found in hers.

Aeeiiiii! Another of the multitude of coerced abortion attempts that Fetus-Fetishist-in-Chief, Rod Bruinooge, will put an end to with his private member's bill C-510, glurgily nicknamed Roxanne's Bill for the woman who was NOT murdered because she refused to have an abortion.

See? They're right. Coerced abortion is rampant and vulnerable women need Rod Bruinooge's protection. She had no choice but to stab the guy FIVE times.

Witness Stephen Yetman said the couple's bickering outside the building woke him up at 1:30 a.m. that night. He said he looked out the window and heard the spat escalate to threats. He said Godwin blamed Morin for allowing drug dealers into his home.

Gee. Coerced abortion or pissed-off (pregnant) cocaine user? A classic he-said-she-said. But in this case, he's not around to say anything.

Well, it appears we'll find out sooner rather than later how this case will be spun. LifeShite reports that the second hour of debate and vote have been moved up to December 13 and 15 from February.

I'm watching the FF's Facebook page, but so far they seem blissfully unaware of the potential of this case for their cause.

I wonder how the TheoCon Patriarchs will feel if the bill becomes law and presto! becomes all-purpose excuse for pregnant women to attack and kill men.

UPDATE: And here it is, first take on spin at LifeShite. 'See? See? This bill is desperately needed!'

four, five goons in policemen's uniforms. In the other, a tiny Black woman.

The physical confrontation took place over two years ago; several ProgBloggers have posted the video - which made Justice Richard Lajoie react strongly - released to The Ottawa Citizen, with some portions edited out to preserve Bonds' dignity, as requested by her lawyer.

The next confrontation between Stacy Bonds and her assailants will take place in court. To ensure that facts, judicial procedure and logic prevail, NOT brutal thuggery, there needs to be a demand for accountability far beyond the shameful and now habitual displays of sham scrutiny provided by the SIU. Here's a petition to sign here.

Ottawa police officers displayed a "bad attitude" from the very beginning of a controversial cell block video showing Stacy Bonds being kneed, pinned to the floor and stripped of her shirt and bra, the head of Ottawa's defence lawyers association said Thursday.

"She is the smallest person in the room and the officers losing control of themselves in the situation so quickly is very concerning," said Doug Baum. "Why was there such initial roughness? Why the knee strikes?

"There was a bad attitude here that led to violence and improper procedure," said Baum.

Thursday, 25 November 2010

A notification sent in error by the University of Ottawa had students on Thursday believing a "violent aggressor" was on campus and that they should take cover.In a text message to people on campus who signed up to a notification list, the university warned students of the lockdown but did not provide a location.

"LOCKDOWN in effect!" the notification read. "Violent aggressor (in/at XXX location). Stop all activities.""If possible, close and lock the door, and turn off lights. Silence cellphones. Keep away from doors and windows. If it is safe to do so, close blinds. Take cover and remain quiet until authorities instruct otherwise," it said.

Vincent Lamontagne said the error message was sent out during routine testing of the system. As soon as staff realized the error, they took steps to stop the system from sending out the message to anyone else and took steps on the university’s website to notify people of the error.

Now if this had happened at Carleton aka Last Chance U, the staff including those who erroneously triggered the msg, would still be hiding in lock-down deep inside the bowels of that campus.

Citing unnamed government sources, the broadcaster said Wednesday night that the Investment Regulatory Organization of Canada is trying to determine why shares in Taseko Mines Ltd., fell nearly 40 per cent on Oct. 14, more than two weeks before the federal government announced that it was blocking the firm’s plans to develop the Prosperity Mine, a development 125 kilometres southwest of Prince George.

Federal officials fear that the steep drop in stock was caused by a leak of information that the development would be stopped, the broadcaster reported, adding that the decision was taken secretly, in hopes of preventing such stock market fluctuations.

And that's why Stevie and his Reformatory Party are called Cons. And leaky lying liars.The departure of Jim Prentice, in this context, is verrrrry interesting.

Wednesday, 24 November 2010

And do feminists care that babies blobs of tissue die? No. So long as female autonomy is upheld, that's all that matters. It's the only thing that matters. The baby's blob of tissue's life is of lesser value.

Enormous Thriving Plants caught Tucker Carlson's support for the patriarchal traditionally sanctioned "cure" for lesbianism which, throughout history and throughout a range of social, cultural, religious and ethnic environments is rape.It takes a particularly twisted misogynist prick like Carlson, however, to justify and rationalize in this way the shocking stats about sexual assaults that female soldiers in the US military have suffered from their male colleague's sexual fury. Under-reported, unchallenged and unpunished violence.In the absence of a "cure" for men who hate women, fantasy fills the void. The existence of Lisbeth Salander, albeit as a fictional character and a gynophobe's nightmare is neither a remedy nor a solution, though collective imagination is a powerful instrument for change.We need more Lisbeth Salanders, to counter the likes of Tucker Carlson, Russell Williams and Pope Maledict.

Karma IS a bitch, and she is my role model.Patrick Ross aka Splatrick aka Twatsy will have to pay the piper for the flatulent fabrications aka malicious defamations against Robert Day aka Canadian Cynic that he published at his own blogsite and in comments at his like-minded pond scum fraternity.Read it and rejoice at this precedent-setting judgement.DJ! may have a couple of comments that Ross posted here, trolling in the guise of a concerned Fetus Fetishist. When he conducted his vicious campaign against CC, he attempted to spread his contamination here and we allowed none of it, much to his chagrin.

fern hill adds: And we're still getting hits from this little temper tantrum. Got one today, in fact. (In case it disappears, I just took a screenshot.)

This product makes it easy to check for prize statements hidden under the rims of paper coffee cups in various contests. Essentially a curved clip with two integral (covered) blades, it slices the cup rim twice (1-1/8" apart) when pushed down, and an internal lip unrolls the paper edge when it’s pulled up. Push, pull and you’re done. 2" high, 1-1/2" wide, with an attached split-ring.

The blurb on the bucket wasn't nearly as fulsome as that, just pointed out their purpose and that they were invented in Ottawa.

I was laughing when the guy came back. He told me he'd had a customer from somewhere in the Excited States, who, after being enlightened as to the gizmo's purpose, asked: 'Why in the world would anyone want to roll up the rim on their cup?' The Lee Valley guy had to explain the whole Timmie's thing to him.

I love Lee Valley. Go read the whole description of the gizmo. I mean, only a Lee Valley copywriter could stretch a write-up of a rim-roller to that length.

I might go back and buy a few (more than 5 and they're only a toonie each) to send to friends and family in the US.

(Sweetie, you didn't stop reading, did you? Ha. You are not getting a rim-roller.)

Pam Allard, one of the admins of Canadians Defending Democracy, formerly Canadians Rallying to Unseat Stephen Harper, or CRUSH, reports on the wall at the Facebook page:

I have great news! The Vaughan Citizen has been given the go-ahead to publish our ad this Sunday, before the Vaughan by-election. We are also pursuing some advertising opportunities in the Ottawa Valley in the near future. Please contribute what you can to our ongoing advertising campaign to defend our democracy.

Launched in August of 2001 The Vaughan Citizen takes over where The Vaughan Liberal left off. With a circulation of 31,625 the Citizen is distributed on Thursdays and Sundays to selected homes in the 'City Above Toronto'. It was decided by Metroland's York Region Newspaper Group, that the community was large enough to have its own community newspaper resulting in the birth of the Vaughan Citizen.

Hmm. I'm thinking that some of those 'selected' homeowners who get the Vaughan Citizen might drop into their local Timmie's and leave the paper behind, open to the appropriate page.

Canadians Defending Democracy is a totally grassroots, multi-partisan group, an offshoot of Canadians Against Proroguing Parliament. Remember, it was labelled a 'radical anti-Stephen Harper group' by internal ReformaTory talking points.

What's not to like about that?

If you do like, please send them a few bucks from their still-under-construction new site.

Some may remember that I had a computer meltdown last month, requiring the expenditure of a great wad of (plastic) dough.

The credit card statement arrived yesterday. I'm what is known as a deadbeat in the credit industry. I pay off my balance every month. Apparently, about a third of us do and it must piss off the bankers mightily.

Normally, I don't pay much attention to the fine print, just look at the total and the due date. Occasionally, I look at the minimum payment and am appalled at how low it is. And how tempting that must be to bad money managers. And how lucrative for the fucking banks.

My sweetie recently alerted me to a new feature on our credit card statements. The bank has kindly calculated how long it would take me to pay off my current balance if I paid only the monthly minimum.

The computer fiasco cost just over $1600. My statement says: 'The estimated time to pay your New Balance in full if you pay only the Minimum Payment is: 13 year(s) and 11 month(s).'

Considering that Apple deems its products 'vintage' after only five years, that length of time amounts to nearly three computer generations!

Must be a new rule for banks, yes? Why would they want to inform us how deeply in feudal thrall we are to them?

Screw you, TD. I'm going to transfer some dough from savings and pay it all off.

Monday, 22 November 2010

Canadians Rallying to Unseat Stephen Harper, or CRUSH, has changed its name and has a new website, albeit still under construction. The old website, its main source of donations, was down for quite a while, just as they're trying to raise dough for the fast-approaching by-elections.

Here's the new site for Canadians Defending Democracy. The goal is the same -- to rid Canada of this plague of NeoTheoCons by getting ordinary Canadians thinking and talking about the damage they've done and continue to do.

The plan was to place an ad in the Vaughan Metro where the odious and absent Julian Fantino is 'running'. But after accepting the ad, Metro decided not to run it, just like in Calgary, where the Calgary Herald and then Calgary Metro both accepted, then refused to run the group's ad.

So, now the only available outlet is the Toronto Star, which is a good deal more expensive. In fact, Canadians Defending Democracy need $3,000 and they need it soon.

Please consider sending a few bucks. Torontonians in particular know what a scary, homophobic authoritarian Fantino is. (I've got a blogpost in the works, just hitting the lowlights highlights of his terrible career.) His political ambitions have to be squashed flat NOW.

CDD is also running ads in Winnipeg in aid of the other by-elections, but for me, Fantino is the much bigger menace. (You should hear my usually good-natured sweetie on the subject.)

Saturday, 20 November 2010

According to BBC news, pope Maledict is grudgingly allowing for the limited use of condoms to prevent HIV.ShriEEEEEk!!!

When asked whether the Catholic Church is "fundamentally against the use of condoms", the Pope is said to have replied [...] "It of course does not see it as a real and moral solution. "In certain cases, where the intention is to reduce the risk of infection, it can nevertheless be a first step on the way to another, more humane sexuality," he said.

The Pope gives the example of the use of condoms by prostitutes as "a first step towards moralisation", even though condoms are "not really the way to deal with the evil of HIV infection".

It would seem the evulness of losing millions of devout parishioners to the AIDS epidemic in Africa, and everywhere the Vatican Taliban enjoys enforcing its own brand of religious dogma, is worse than the evil of safe sex.Oh, and in case Dodo Can Spew - Blob Blogging Whinger's BFF - happens to be the one to alert authorities, that phone number for 9-1-1? It's 9-1-1.

[A] 66-year-old Wisconsin man was arrested after he allegedly became so angry watching Bristol Palin on "Dancing with the Stars" that he fired off his shotgun at his television, leading to a 15-hour standoff with state police. According to the criminal complaint, [...] "Steven was upset that a political figure's daughter was dancing on this particular show when Steven did not think she was a good dancer."

Some might opine that Bristol is not particularly skilled at promoting abstinence either. And also.

This awkwardly choreographed message may succeed in promoting abstinence, thanks to the clumsy dialogue, zero chemistry and fake charm of its two chromed-to-the-gills 'stars'.One antidote against this cloying PSA might be "porn-in-a-cup".

LifeShite has changed its shrieeeeek tune. It has been convinced by Big Nurse Stanek. It's an anti-choice stunt.

“Although the posts appeared plausible when I perused them, the concept had “scam” written all over it. So I didn’t buy in. My thought was the couple was trying to punk pro-lifers,” she writes in a NewsBusters post about the web site. “The reaction has been most interesting. Pro-choicers think this is a scam against them. Now, while pro-lifers are becoming incensed and begging the couple not to abort, pro-choicers are becoming incensed and wanting the couple to be shot.”

Stanek says the detailed descriptions of the development of the unborn child and the couple’s posting of ultrasound pictures lead her to believe the couple is pro-life and using the web site and the attention to show the absurdity of abortion.

“I’ve come to agree this is a pro-life stunt. A pro-choicer, unless a real sicko, would not go into this sort of detail about the 16-week development of the baby she may abort,” Stanek says.

Hahahahahaha. A pro-choicer would have to be a real sicko to put up ultrasound images. Whereas a fetus fetishist -- and you know of WHOM we speak -- who decorates HER blog with gory fetal pr0n is a model of perfect mental health.

LifeShite also cites pro-choicer Amanda Marcotte, who also believes it's a prank.

I just checked. There have been over 90,000 votes and they're running 80% in favour of not aborting. And the comments seem to be disabled.

Thursday, 18 November 2010

LifeShite -- among many other media outlets -- is SHRIIIEEEKING about a couple in the US (where else?) who have a blog to let people vote on whether they should have an abortion or not.

The woman is 16 weeks pregnant and the deadline for a legal abortion is December 9.

Currently, more than 5,500 people have voted in the poll — with 62.47 percent urging the couple to give birth to their baby and 37.53 telling them to destroy the child’s life in an abortion.

That’s a departure from the earlier vote which tilted towards the abortion before the story moved through pro-life circles on the Internet overnight.

When I just looked it was running 75% for birth, 25% for abortion with more than 11,000 votes (I didn't).

LifeShite continues:

Ironically, while most couple celebrate the expectation of a new baby by posting ultrasound pictures on their web site, the Arnolds have posted theirs but apparently have been unaffected by the visual proof of the life of their child.

At the moment, there's a post up about some whacko group called 4chan that is posting porn or something to get its members to vote on the abortion question. I'd never heard of it, so I consulted Wiki. I read about two sentences and my head started to hurt. I do not need further nuttiness today.

But I do think there should be a Poe-like law for Internet absurdities around abortion.

If there isn't, we should coin one. I suggest calling it SUZYALLCAPSLOCK law: 'Without a winking smiley or other blatant display of humour, it is impossible to create a parody of insanity concerning abortion that someone won't mistake for the real thing.'

What do you think? Is this for real?

(There's a photo of the happy (?) couple here but it won't help you much in trying to figure out if the woman is actually pregnant.)

As well, read knitnut and dr dawg about the illegal police brutality directed at Stacy Bonds.

Finally: only a cop can ensure complaints against cops who do not follow proper procedure and are derelict in their legal duties, are processed in a fair and timely manner.

Doug Thompson was found dead in a city boarding house last September, and police officers gave his body to social services without checking his wallet or cell phone for ways to notify his next of kin. It took a week for his family to find out the 61-year-old had passed away of natural causes.

Andrew Thompson [an Ottawa police officer] filed a complaint, which resulted in internal discipline for the four officers. "We weren't satisfied with that given the seriousness of the negligence on their part," Thompson told the Standard- Freeholder earlier this year. "They've made a huge mistake."

The Ontario Civilian Police Association hearing will now review the charges laid against the four men. Thompson and his family also filed a $250,000 lawsuit against the police, city services and the coroner's office involved in the burial.

Today, I was on the streetcar after rush hour but it was pretty crowded. Not jammed, but crowded. I had just got on, struggled to find a standing spot, and was standing, when a young seated woman looked up at me, smiled, and said: 'Would you like to sit?'

'No, I'm fine, thank you,' I replied from between what I hope were not terribly clenched teeth.

The Liberals say that the government's quarterly advertising report shows that $6 million was set aside to produce and run an ad campaign directed at victims of crime. Meanwhile, the recently released Public Accounts show that lapsed funding for the Victims of Crime Initiative last year amounted to just under $4 million, or 45 per cent of available funds, said the Liberal release.

Dalton McGuinty promises Ontario tax-payers that his government will attempt to "show more transparency" in the future, with regard to the province's financial situation. En français - "montrer plus de transparence".

I can't find a recording of McGuinty's exact words, or that news item online at R-C or CBC. Is it a slip, or a deliberate attempt by a copy editor (do they actually still review texts before they're broadcast), to spice up yet another banal utterance by the premier?

A gay conservative group and some Tea Party leaders are campaigning to keep social issues off the Republican agenda.

"On behalf of limited-government conservatives everywhere, we write to urge you and your colleagues in Washington to put forward a legislative agenda in the next Congress that reflects the principles of the Tea Party movement," they write to presumptive House Speaker John Boehner and Senate GOP leader Mitch McConnell in an advance copy provided to POLITICO. "This election was not a mandate for the Republican Party, nor was it a mandate to act on any social issue."

I love this bit:

"When they were out in the Boston Harbor, they weren't arguing about who was gay or who was having an abortion," said Ralph King, a letter signatory who is a Tea Party Patriots national leadership council member, as well as an Ohio co-coordinator.

King said he signed onto the letter because GOProud seemed to be genuine in pushing for fiscal conservatism and limited government.

"Am I going to be the best man at a same sex-marriage wedding? That's not something I necessarily believe in," said King. "I look at myself as pretty socially conservative. But that's not what we push through the Tea Party Patriots."

The [exit] poll found 30 percent of all voters said that abortion “affected” their vote with 22% of all voters backing pro-life candidates and eight percent saying they supported pro-abortion candidates — giving pro-life candidates a net pro-life advantage of 14 percent among all voters.

But these were mid-term elections, when more insanely obsessed committed voters turn out. More difficult to predict for the next presidential election.

I read in today's headlines that Development and Peace has helped finance a documentary called Operation Diablo about how a Peruvian priest who opposed a mining project became the victim of harassment. It was produced by Stephanie Boyd. Is this what parishoners had in mind when they gave money to the organization? Give a western woman money to produce a movie? Does this really help development in the Third World? One wonders.

One does indeed wonder why Blob Blogging Wingnut called this a 'headline'. HER link takes the reader to a specialised catholic radio network. Does SHE have "Development and Peace" on google news alert?Given HERs and SoConOrNuts' obsession with the organization, that should be expected.HER claims are rife with truthiness. The documentary was developed, filmed and distributed by the Guarango Association, in fact.Nor is this the first documentary produced about the struggles of peasants and farmers fighting the mining companies who extract gold and devastate their communities, which leaves them without the means to feed their families, as well as poisoned by the metal exploitation techniques.But it seems that Blob Blogging Whinger is fine with all that. From HER perspective, those are not victims worthy of HER compassion and support.However, parishioners blindly giving money to the Vatican Taliban so they can whitewash the findings by conducting their own inquiry into pedophile priests and child abuse in Ireland? Now there's a project SHE can support.Update: One could not make this s**t up - though there's synchronicity at work.

The Roman Catholic Diocese of Bathurst, N.B., wants to be able to use money set aside to train future clergy to help compensate people sexually assaulted by a priest in the past. Rev. Wesley Wade, the bishop of the diocese, has asked the New Brunswick Court of Queen's Bench, which deals with such requests, to allow it to take money from a trust fund used to help educate people entering the priesthood. The trust fund consists of money left to the church over the years.

Got that? Years, possibly decades ago, parishioners willed money (kept in trusts) to pay for seminary costs and priests' training. Now the diocese wants to use the money to compensate victims of childhood sexual abuse at the hands of convicted pedophile priest Levi Noël. There appears to be a particular logic that applies, though I imagine it will provoke more shriEEEks from la SAINTENITOUCHE.

I started this blogpost soon after the Merkin election, but then got too busy for a long, linkful post.

While I was mightily depressed over the results, I was looking for silver linings. And I found a few.

Traditionally (somewhat) more progressive places like Illinois, New York, and California stayed Democratic.

In the Illinois governor's race, the Democrat beat the Teabagger after trailing badly for weeks in the polls. On election morning, did the good/sane people of Illinois wake up and say 'Holy crap! What were we thinking?'

In Colorado, where, despite its nutbars' obsession with the Humpty-Dumpty Initiative, the rest of the people are really quite sane. Not only did they thumpingly reject yet another attempt to give 'personhood' to fertilzed eggs, they crushed the ambition of another Teabagger, much credit going to the women.

And in California, after one of the most vitriolic campaigns against an incumbent I've ever seen, the Dem won.

Yet in spite of her perennially weak approval ratings, a political climate that favored Republicans and what she called the "toughest and roughest campaign" of her lifetime, Boxer pulled out yet another victory, trouncing former Hewlett-Packard Chief Executive Carly Fiorina 52% to 42.6%, with some ballots still to be counted.

Carly Fucking Fiorina is anti-choice, natch.

In the governor's race, millionaire businesswoman Meg Whitman went down to defeat at the hands of Jerry 'Moonbeam' Brown, after reportedly spending $175 million of her own dough. This time, credit the Latinos after Whitman got 'tough on illegals'.

So, where the Dems had the wit to actively campaign against the nuttier notions of the Douchebaggers, the sane people woke up.

And I think -- and this guy too thinks -- that the extreme anti-abortion position acted as the clarion call.

While almost nothing went right for Democratic candidates this fall, one issue turned out to be a winner in some of the closest Senate races in the nation: abortion.

By branding Republican challengers as outside the cultural mainstream on the issue, Democrats managed to hold on to at least a slice of the political center by courting and winning over moderate women in a handful of key states.

The strategy ran counter to the one that enabled the party to broaden the political map in 2006 and 2008, when Democrats thrived by running candidates whose positions on abortion were closely attuned to the socially conservative areas where they sought office.

This year, however, Democrats adopted almost the opposite approach late in the 2010 campaign. As many of the anti-abortion Democrats elected over the last four years were going down in defeat, the party made abortion a central concern in a handful of battleground Senate races — and they ended up in the Democratic column as a result.

I think the boyos in the 'war rooms' underestimate the (sometimes) slumbering giant of women's rights as an issue.

Over Motherhood Steve's totally hypocritical Maternal Health Initiative, I was encouraging the fucking Liberals to use abortion rights as a wedge issue.

Friday, 12 November 2010

Call me* me perverse, irreverent or twisted ... When I saw this political cartoon, I roared in laughter then immediately thought about Blob Blogging Wingnut and how SHE unendingly whines on and on about HER ideological opponent's illogic (while presenting convoluted leaps of HER own) ... And how so unfairly life has treated HER (thank g-d for the Vatican Taliban!) ... And the media conspiracy against what SHE terms the religious 'culture of life' (which seems rife with agonized emotions, holy retribution and grim suppression of the human spirit).

Over 90 % of African women of childbearing age live in countries with limited or no access to safe abortion procedures.

According to the most recent data, of the 5.6 million abortions carried out in the region every year, only 100,000 are performed under safe conditions.

Here is another way to think about that statistic: Every year, about 5.5 million women in Africa risk their lives when they decide to terminate a pregnancy. Drinking bleach or inserting sharp objects into their cervix are only two of the horrifying methods they use. These are not risks any woman should be forced to take.

Several African countries -- including Zambia, Botswana, Ghana, South Africa, and Zimbabwe have loosened the rules around abortion, but women continue to die there because they could not access services or did not know they existed. (Here's that nifty interactive map showing the legal status of abortion around the world again.)

One example is South Africa, where just six years after the country liberalised its abortion law, the number of women dying from unsafe abortion dropped by 50%, and the number of women suffering serious complications fell as well.

It doesn't take a rocket surgeon to figure out that there are three basic pieces to the seemingly unsolvable puzzle of unsafe abortion in Africa.

1. Liberalize misogynistic laws. This is a job for the African people, but help should be offered and given if accepted.

The report’s [UN Human Development Index] new Gender Inequality Index—which tracks gender gaps in reproductive health, empowerment and work-force participation in 138 countries—shows that there are proportionally more women in sub-Saharan African parliaments (17 percent) than in Eastern Europe and Central Asia (12 percent), South Asia (10 percent) or the Arab states.

Well, there's bad news in that report too.

Yet, the region includes seven of the 10 most gender-unequal countries in the world: Cameroon, Côte d’Ivoire, Liberia, Central Africa Republic, Mali, Niger and Democratic Republic of the Congo.

2. Provide more contraception and sex education. This we in the West can do.

3. Provide training, supplies, and facilities for abortion services where they are already legal. This we could do too.

Well, we could have if we didn't have misogynist theocrat Stevie Spiteful unaccountably still in office.

Wednesday, 10 November 2010

Two Israeli nonprofit groups that focus on human rights in the occupied Palestinian territories, HaMoked and B’Tselem, recently reported that Israeli agents have mistreated and even tortured Palestinian detainees. The groups’ findings were based on interviews they conducted with 121 Palestinians who had been held at the Israel Security Agency’s Petach-Tikva interrogation center in the first or last quarter of 2009. The full report, “Kept in the Dark: Treatment of Palestinian Detainees in the Petach-Tikva Interrogation Facility of the Israel Security Agency," can be found here on B’Tselem’s website.

In the report, the authors allege that prisoners were mistreated in a variety of ways, including: Thirty percent of those interviewed reported physical violence being used during their arrest, including beating, kicking, and painful shackling.[...]

The report points out that abuse of detainees is against Israeli and international law. In addition, B'Tselem and HaMoked write that these cases can't be excused as "ticking-bomb" scenarios where police have to get a detainee to talk immediately or disaster will strike -- according to them, most of the detainees "were not suspected of serious offenses." The authors of the report connect the mistreatment of detainees to a wider pattern of prejudice against Palestinians. Detainee abuse, they write, is "made possible due to the dehumanization of the Palestinian population."

Benham and his associates were ordered to stay 300 feet or more from wherever the targeted doctor works and 1,000 from his residence. Benham was put on two years probation.

The two years sounds about right to me -- spent doing hard time, that is.

He won't abide by the conditions. He''ll appeal. He'll wail about free speech. He'll get arrested again. And there will be MASSIVE martyrgasms among his followers.

It is so predictable.

Meanwhile, I did learn something new. There is a strong association of violence against clinics and staff with proximity to fake pregnancy clinics, aka 'Crisis Pregnancy Centers'. Flip is a featured player here.

Margaret Somerville - their Bee Queen - got trotted out for her annual 30-second sound bite because Right-to-Lies would rather not show a frothing-at-the-mouth, knickers-in-a-knot lunatic like John "Sperm Holocaust" Pacheco as their media rep.

[...] between the two poles of a spectrum from unrestricted availability of abortion throughout pregnancy – the present situation – to prohibiting it entirely, there is a wide variety of opinion and certainly no overall consensus on any given approach.

Somerville propagates many untruths and bits of truthiness in her opinion piece which is titled - in typical lying liars' fashion - "The Facts on Abortion". The quote above is typical. Medical practitioners provide the means to terminate pregnancies, which range from pharmaceutical to surgical, in the case of fetus which have ceased to develop in uterus.

There is NO "unrestricted availability" as she claims, but you can be certain that Somerville, her acolytes such as Blob Blogging Wingnut and the Vatican Taliban would enforce pregnancy as a gynophobic control over women's sexual and reproductive power if they could.

A holdout compared to other provinces in giving sexual abuse victims the benefit of the doubt, Quebec courts will now have to think twice before throwing out cases where the alleged abuse happened many years ago.

In what experts are calling a “partial victory” for victims, the Supreme Court of Canada ruled in favour of Shirley Christensen, 37, a Quebec City resident who has been trying to sue the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Quebec for the abuse she endured as a young girl at the hands of a priest.

The priest, Paul-Henri Lachance, pleaded guilty in 2009 to several charges of sexual assault against Christensen. Nearing 80 years old, Lachance was sentenced to 18 months in jail.

I personally know several women who were sexually abused by priests when they were girls. Those clerics are not gay, but they certainly are pedophiles.

Why would adult women want to sue the catholic church for harm and damage? For start, church authorities have demonstrated over and over again they are complicit in perpetuating clerical pedophilia when they cover up, lie and exculpate these sexual predators by blaming the girls for the priests' criminal actions.

Well, it seems that she has gone too far with this fake feminism meme for her base base.

Last week on Fox News, Palin praised Geraldine Ferraro for "breaking the glass ceiling," saying that ”Neanderthals” focus on issues like whether mothers should work outside the home, which Palin says is “petty, little, superficial, meaningless." Ferraro, who ran for U.S. vice president alongside Walter Mondale in 1984, was criticized at the time by Catholic bishops for her pro-choice stance.. . . Over at the blog Thinking Housewife, Laura Wood isn't too pleased:

Palin says she cheered Ferraro when she ran for vice president, as if every female candidate feels automatic solidarity with any other female candidate. How “great for our nation” it was that Ferraro ran. Golly gee willickers. The supposedly pro-life, small-government Palin applauds the efforts of someone with an entirely different political philosophy simply because she is a woman.

Golly gee willickers. Sarah supporting a woman 'simply because she's a woman' is WRONG but that's exactly what her supporters demanded of progressive women and feminazis.